Seamless Care in a ‘Vertical Healing Garden’

Ng Teng Fong General HospitalJurong, Singapore

“This project is an extraordinary model for hospitals to behave as healing environments. ... The passive strategies demonstrated here are a model for hospitals around the world.”

AIA Committee on the Environment Jury

Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) is Singapore’s first medical campus with an outpatient clinic, community hospital and acute care general hospital.

The team designed the campus as a prototype for the Singapore Ministry of Health’s effort to provide high-quality, affordable care to all.

The facility, which includes Jurong Community Hospital, provides seamless integration of care on a single site. Close management ensures integration at the hospitals’ infrastructure, administrative and clinical levels. The hospitals are designed to share service facilities such as digital imaging, pharmacy, catering, medical records, storage and training facilities.

Sustainable design strategies create a facility that functions like a vertical healing garden. Based on the design team’s client mandate to give “every patient a window,” the design brings plants, gardens and daylight into each patient’s view. Controlled access to vegetation on terraces provides a therapeutic environment for healing. Oriented to reduce solar gain and capture prevailing breezes, the unique floor arrangement allows for double the amount of natural ventilation. The project also includes solar thermal hot water heating and a large photovoltaic array. It has been rated Platinum under Singapore’s Green Mark program.

The team used detailed computational fluid dynamics models, shading analysis, climate analysis, daylight modeling and energy modeling to develop the design to optimize energy efficiency and the patient experience.

As design and medical planning consultant, HOK collaborated with the Singapore Ministry of Health and a team that included CPG Corporation (prime architect and architect of record) and Studio 505 (design collaborator focusing on building envelope development).

The AIA COTE selected the project as one of the best examples of sustainable design excellence for 2017.